A luxury location - two thousand invited delegates - a handful of high profile biz-union friendly guest speakers - a shit-load of over-paid union heads and undoubtedly tens of thousands of union dues dollars later - UFCWs' International Convention 2013 comes to a close and fades into the annals of union history. Or will it?

Flanagan: Harper Advisor wants Assange Dead

It was a moment of "manly"_ness he says, that prompted "University of Calgary Prof and Harper Advisor Tom Flanagan" to call for the assassination of WikiLeak creator Julian Assange. And, referencing the leaked memoirs of war, here's Flanagan's defense: "...there's stuff in there that could cause a war!".

Trustees of the Canadian Commercial Workers Industry Pension plan were convicted today of violating the Pension Benefits Act of Ontario. Multiple charges were laid against the trustees in 2006 after an investigation by the Financial Services Commission of Ontario found numerous apparent breaches of pension laws.

More bad news for the trustees of the troubled Canadian Commercial Workers Industry Pension plan. Since 2005, when the Financial Services Commission of Ontario started breathing down their necks about a $50 million investment in a mothballed Bahamas resort, the trustees have been working hard to offload the South Ocean Golf and Beach Resort - or at least, trying to make it look that way.

When it comes to shameless hypocrisy the leaders of the Canadian UFCW are always trying to push out the boundaries of the known universe. Last week they took things to a whole new level. In a whiny media release, they advised the world that they are being dragged up the courthouse steps by their arch enemies at Wal-Mart Corporation on account of their use of Wal-Mart logos, slogans, color schemes and other "indicia" on www.walmartworkersofcanada.ca, a UFCW-operated web site. Should we be outraged? Not a chance.

As Toronto finds itself in the second week of a strike by 30,000 municipal workers, members of CUPE Locals 79 and 416, a disturbing scene is unfolding. Although the workers' dispute is with the City, the optics of the strike - what the citizens see both in the media and with their own eyes - paint an ugly picture of strikers pitted against their community.

More bad news for members of UFCW Canada's beleaguered CCWIPP pension plan: A notice from the pension plan's trustees this past week announced a -19.6% rate of return for 2008 and warned that "without significant new capital, benefit restructuring will be necessary".

The notice comes as members await the verdict, expected in next month, into dozens of charges under the Ontario Pension Benefits Act that were filed against the trustees in 2006.